REDEMPTION: Donnie Darko

REDEMPTION: Black Rain

Join us for the season finale of Snobs On Film: Redemption by exploring classic 80s-style action with Ridley Scott’s underrated Michael Douglas thriller: Black Rain. When New York City cop Nick Conklin chases a Japanese mob figure to Tokyo, Conklin’s demons come along for the ride, quickly derail the investigation, and bury him beneath his own hubris. Soon, Conklin and his partner are outsiders in a world that has no way in, stalking a man who represents the fall of ancient beliefs and the rise of a kingdom without a code. When the unthinkable happens, Conklin must face his failures and make a defining choice between the satisfaction of revenge and the honor of redemption.

REDEMPTION: Donnie Darko

Snobs On Film: Redemption continues with a movie that epitomizes the category of “cult classic”. A night of prophetic somnambulism kicks off the wonderfully weird and bewitching story of Donnie Darko, a film that folds its redemptive qualities into the dreamlike existence of a teen watching his world dissolve into nightmare. Jake Gyllenhaal is Donnie, a kid whose school days and home life are complicated by mental illness. Add frequent interactions with a demonic (but sage) rabbit-man, a ticking clock that may be counting down to world destruction, and a strange twist on the usual banality of teen angst, and you get a movie that subverts everything in grand fashion. By the time a mysterious jet engine falls from the sky, the odd narrative of Donnie Darko has already become a story full of grim intrigue and edgy fantasy.

REDEMPTION: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

The sublime martial artistry of the 2000 classic, CrouchingTiger, Hidden Dragon, demonstrates only one form of the film’s great battles. The other style of conflict takes place on the war-torn fields of inner turmoil and forbidden love. Michelle Yeoh and Zhang Ziyi portray parallel characters whose internal struggle pits what they have outwardly accepted against what they inwardly long for. And when Chow Yun-fat’s Green Destiny sword is stolen, all three characters embark on a path that becomes a collision course of emotion and a final frontier for their redemption. Join Snobs on Film as we continue our #1Theme10Films season with this incredibly epic, yet intimate tale.

REDEMPTION: Pulp Fiction

SOF’s #1Theme10Films continues with Pulp Fiction! Very few films have explored the serpentine road to redemption as uniquely as Quentin Tarantino’s 1994 seminal hit. While assassins offer their existential thoughts, gangsters go medieval, and a clean-up man expounds on the fine art of removing dead bodies—a boxer looks for vindication in the bowels of retro LA. As the film's plot toys with chronology and conventionalism, Pulp Fiction proves to be a tour de force filled with unforgettable characters, unsettling violence, and unexpected wit.

REDEMPTION: Notorious

Snobs On Film: Redemption returns with a film so full of tension and intrigue that it could only have come from the legendary Master of Suspense. Alfred Hitchcock’s Notorious features a conflicted Cary Grant, whose love for Ingrid Bergman sets him at odds with his duty as a spy. Bergman is the key to bringing down a network of Nazis in post-war Brazil, and her willingness to enter into a web of lies leads to a final, iconic scene that turns a moment of redemption into a choice between life and death. Join us as we continue our #1Theme10Films season with Notorious.